Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Politics of Non-cooperation: the Boycott of the International Centre for Theoretical
Physics
by Alexis De Greiff*
Published with slight changes in OSIRIS (“Historical Perspectives on Science, Technology, and
International Affairs”, John Krige & Kai-Henrik Barth, eds.), Vol. 21 (2006), 86-109.
argue that the boycott of the ICTP was motivated as much by the
politicization of science.
2
From its creation in 1964, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, or ICTP, was soon
the best-known institution where Third World physicists came to have access to the latest
developments in the field and had the chance to do research. Between 1964 and 1980, more than
6.000 scientists from the developing countries (and a similar figure from industrialized countries)
visited the Centre. It was located in Trieste and its deputy-director was a scientific diplomat
from that city, Prof. Paolo Budinich. 1 The central actor of the ICTP’s early history was however
Prof. Adbus Salam, its first director. Born in the region of British India that would later become
Pakistan, Salam read mathematics and physics in Cambridge. In 1958, he became the first
professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College. In 1979 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for
physics. Under his leadership, the ICTP became a reference point for scientists in developing
countries as the model of international scientific collaboration for Third World development, and
Salam perhaps the most famous spokesperson of the ‘science for development’ ideology amongst
political and scientific milieus both in the Third World and in industrialised countries.
In its early years, the ICTP operated under the auspices of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA, a United Nations technical agency) and also had substantial financial
support from the Italian Government. In 1970, UNESCO joined the IAEA in the operation.
1
Alexis De Greiff, “The tale of two peripheries: The creation of the International Centre for
Theoretical Physics in Trieste”, Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, 33
Part 1 (2002): 33-60. Alexis De Greiff. "The International Centre for Theoretical Physics, 1960-
1979: Ideology and Practice in a United Nations Institution for Scientific Co-Operation and
UNESCO’s collaboration was vital to the survival of the Centre, for the ICTP’s financial
condition was always precarious. In the early years of the ICTP Salam did not like UNESCO’s
tutelage; however, by 1970, there were few alternatives for increasing the ICTP’s finances. Even
then, the sense of instability continued, for although the agreement with UNESCO brought more
resources, its future plans continued to be subjected to periodic approvals.2 What is more the
center became ensnared in a major political confrontation inside UNESCO which almost
destroyed it.
In the mid-1970s, tension in the Middle East put international co-operation with the Third
World in serious jeopardy. Three ‘anti-Israeli’ resolutions approved in the 1974 UNESCO
General Conference, sparked a massive boycott against the international organization and, as a
result of its association, against the ICTP as well.3 This was led by American and Israeli
2
In November 1974, a committee presided by CERN theoretical physicist Leon Van Hove stated
that: “a feeling of uncertainty concerning the future of the Centre is rampant, both among its
scientific leaders and its administrative staff,” and recommended the allocation of stable sources
of income because “the staff should be given a highest security of position.” IAEA, “Report of
the ad hoc consultative committee of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste to
the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations
promoting cultural and scientific cooperation. However, critical works on its political, cultural
and scientific activities are scarce (See Aant Elzinga, “Introduction: Modes of Internationalism”
in Internationalism and Science, edited by Aant Elzinga and Catharina Landström, 3-20.
(London, 1996); Aant Elzinga, “Unesco and the Politics of Scientific Internationalism,” in ibid.,
4
scientists who believed that UNESCO, and by ricochet Salam’s institute, were failing to respect
their international calling and had become politicized and beholden to radical groups determined
pressure some change.” It is based on a theory of action that identifies a relationship between the
isolation of the target and the desired goal.4 This phenomenon, as part of international politics, is
relatively new. In the history of science, the best-known case regards the isolation of German
and Austrian intellectuals after the Great War. The chauvinistic stances adopted by scientific
intellectuals on both sides of the trenches broke down the kind of scientific internationalism that
had prevailed since ca. 1870. As Forman has shown, scientific internationalism – like
89-131. In spite of its importance for the history of UNESCO, there is only one scholarly study
devoted to the so-called Israel Resolutions and the boycott that followed, written from the
international relations perspective (Clare Wells, The UN, UNESCO and the Politics of
Knowledge (London, 1987). Histories of UNESCO have systematically ignored the issue
Manipulation in Germany after World War I,” Isis 64 (1973): 151-80. Catharina Landström,
"Internationalism between Two Wars," in Internationalism and Science, Elzinga and Landström,
(cit. n. 3), 54. Also Daniel Kevles, “‘Into Hostile Political Camps’: The Reorganization of
internationalism. Despite the potential interest in international relations of science, the literature
on scientific boycotts is practically non-existent, especially in the period after World War Two.6
This paper tackles three related questions regarding a scientific boycott. First, I am
concerned with the organizations of the boycott as well as the criteria and reasons scientists have
to boycott certain institutions instead of others. I shall argue that the motivations for the boycott
concerned essentially the image of the ICTP as a center for Third World development rather than
as a research institution. Such motivations never, or almost never, arose in an explicit way. Thus,
the boycott will allow us investigate how the scientific community reacted when the Centre was
trapped by a major crisis in UN politics, and also to scrutinize the workings of scientific
internationalism in the second half of the twentieth century. Second, I investigate how the
boycotting scientists moved the boundary between science and politics in order to suit their interests
and ideologies. Such boundary-work served as a basis to defend Mertonian norms such as the need
to keep science free from politics and the identification of science with the values of Western
6
Perhaps the only exception is the sanctions against the racist regime in South Africa
(Haricombe and Lancaster. Out in the Cold. (cit. n. 4)). The effects of the boycott upon South
Africa are a source of major debates. Some authors have studied the activities of the boycotting
activists, concluding that sanctions alone do not guarantee the desired effects. (P. Wallensteen,
Politics, edited by W.D. Coplin and C.W. Kegley, (Chicago IL, 1971), 128-254; M.P. Doxey,
International Sanctions and International Enforcement (New York, 1980). Others criticize
scientific collaboration because science and scientists are pivotal for the prolongation of the
racist government (Yngve Nordvelle, “The Academic Boycott of South Africa Debate: science
and social practice,” Studies in Higher Education 15, N.3 (1990): 253-272).
6
democracies.7 I suggest opposing the “politicization of science” was not only aimed at keeping
international scientific institutions politically neutral; rather, they purported to define “ideologically
describe how the center handled the boycott, exploring Salam’s strategies to use the boycott in
order to stabilize the center financially. As we shall see, despite the disruption caused by the
boycott, it provided Salam with an instrument to negotiate successfully with UNESCO, and to
In the two decades between 1950 and 1970, decolonization gave the UN and its technical
agencies a new composition. The emergence of a new majority, and the controversial character
of some of the issues it raised, became a source of high tension within the system. The UN was
transformed into a forum for the confrontation of the radical regimes in the Third World and
7
See Robert K. Merton, “Science and technology in a democratic order,” Journal of Legal and
Political Socilogy, 1: 15-26. On the relation of boundary-work with Merton’s norms see Thomas
F. Gieryn, “Boundaries of Science,” in Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, ed. Sheila
Jasanoff et al. (Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1995), 393-443. See also
Gieryn, Cultural Boudaries of Science. Credibility on the line (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1999).
8
Michael Gordin, Walter Grunden, Mark Walker and ZouYue Wang, “ ‘Ideologically correct’
science,” in Science and Ideology. A Comparative History, ed. Mark Walker (London, New
former colonial countries.9 By the end of 1960s, the Third World commanded more than two
thirds of the votes in the UN General Assembly, UNESCO, the Food and Agriculture
The new states gained assertiveness in international scenarios under the leadership of
young, charismatic revolutionaries.10 For the first time, bloc positions and initiatives challenged
the “existing institutional order.”11 The strategic alliance between some Arab states and the Pan-
African movement catalyzed the dreams of the Bandung Conference (1955): to unite the Third
World against colonizers, neo-imperialism, and repressive regimes backed by the latter.
The confrontation in the UN reached a peak when, in 1974, after the Yon
Kippur/Ramadan war, the General Assembly and UNESCO’s General Conference approved a
number of resolutions against Israel and South Africa. Most of the African states developed
angry anti-Israel sentiments because of its close relationship with the white dominated regimes
of South Africa and Rhodesia, on one hand, and Portugal and the United States, on the other. As
an analyst pointed out in 1975, “Israel was considered too much part of the Western world. […]
9
Between 1954 and 1974 the number of UNESCO Member States increased from 70 to almost
legitimacy,” closely related to “the challenge to established patterns of resources allocation, that
is, explicit questioning of the political ends which may be served by extensibly technical
activity,” Wells, The UN, UNESCO and the Politics of Knowledge (cit. n. 3), 5.
8
[It] appeared to be virtually the fifty-first state of the United States… In that respect Israel
seemed a piece of the West deposited in the heart of the Third World.”12 This revolt against the
traditional order in the UN institutional structure I call here the “diplomatic November
Revolution.”13
The tone was set by the UN in New York. The General Assembly requested that the
Secretary General establish contacts with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation “on all matters
concerning the ‘Question of Israel’.” Yasir Arafat was invited to address the Assembly and, a
year later, in 1975, the Assembly passed a resolution condemning Zionism “as a form of racism
and racial discrimination.”14 Furthermore, the PLO was admitted to the International Labour
Organisation, another UN agency that was increasingly opposed by the United States.
12
Ali A. Mazui, “Black Africa and the Arabs,” Foreign Affairs 53, no. 4 (1975): 725-742. See
also Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr., A Concise History of the Middle East, Fourth Edition ed (Boulder,
confrontation (see Elzinga, “Unesco and the Politics of Scientific Internationalism,” (cit. n. 3),
114-115). Another instance was the confrontation around the Rio Declaration on the
Organisation of African Unity. For a complete version of the resolutions see UN Doc.
A/RES/3236 (XXIX), Nov. 22, 1974 and UN Doc. A/RES/3379 (XXX), Nov. 10, 1975, in J.N.
Moore, The Arab-Israeli Conflict. Readings and Documents. Abridged and Revised Edition
Concomitantly, the UN suspended South Africa from its Assembly because of its racial policies,
Similarly, the 1974 UNESCO General Conference held in Paris produced two major
outcomes. Firstly it saw the election of Amadou Mahtar M’Bow from Senegal. Secondly, three
resolutions attacking Israel were approved. It is worth describing at least their most general
points. The first “Israel Resolution” “invite[d] the Director General to withhold assistance from
Israel in the field of education, science and culture until such time as it scrupulously respects the
resolution and decisions of the Executive Board and the General Conference.” This referred to
decisions regarding the archaeological excavations carried out by Israel at Muslim sites in
Jerusalem, in violation of the 1967 UN and UNESCO resolutions. In addition, the conference
condemned Israel for violating the rights of the population of the occupied Arab territories to
“national and cultural life.” However, the bitter attacks against UNESCO originated when the
United States, Canada and Israel introduced a draft resolution asking that they be included “in
the list of countries entitled to participate in the European regional activities in which the
representative character of States is an important factor.” On 20th November, the United States
and Canada were admitted, while Israel was turned down.16 The rejection was interpreted as an
15
The December 1975 issue of the UNESCO Courier advertised two studies sponsored by that
agency: one on “Racism and apartheid in southern Africa” and another on “South Africa and
Culture with the following results: 85 against; 2 in favor (Israel and Paraguay); 11 Abstentions
(Austria, China, Australia, France, Honduras, Chile, Finland, Japan, Nepal, Switzerland,
10
The United States Department of State, through its Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger,
objected at once, stressing that these moves meant the “politicisation of UNESCO.” The New
York Times echoed declarations of US and Israeli diplomats on “the tyranny of the majority” and
the UN as the “World center for Anti-Semitism,” while the editorial pages denounced the way in
which the Arab bloc “and its allies, on behalf of the PLO, amassed votes of vengeance against
Israel.”17 Virtually without exception, the discourse of the American foreign affairs top officers and
the mass media led to the identification of the “politicization of UNESCO ” with the majority’s
imposition, namely the Third World countries and “its allies” – the communists and the terrorist
organization PLO. As Robert Jordan, an American UN research director, observed some years later
“… for the United States to bemoan the ‘politicization’ of UNESCO (or ILO) is merely a way of
saying that U.S. influence has been on the wane. ”. 18 The United States declared that it would stop
Uruguay). The socialist countries voted against, and many European countries were not present
in the room at the time of the vote; see Moore, The Arab-Israeli Conflict (cit. n. 12).
17
Anon., “Kissinger Role on U.N. Force Related,” New York Times, 1 December 1974, 14 . The
following day, the editorial reported that “the Arab bloc and its communist and African allies
Affairs, University of Wisconsin in 1975, Kissinger insisted that the “Third World sanctions
against Israel” was the expression of the “heavy politicisation” of UNESCO. Robert S. Jordan,
“Boycott Diplomacy: The US, the UN , and UNESCO,” Public Administration Review, July-
paying its contribution to UNESCO if the Resolutions were not lifted.19 France and Switzerland,
in spite of their ambiguous position during the General Conference, stated similar intentions.20
Director-General M’Bow replied to the attacks by pointing out that Israel had not been “excluded
from UNESCO,” as might be inferred from the presentation of the resolutions in the mass media.
Its exclusion was from “the list of countries entitled to participate in activities in which the
representative character of states is an important factor.”21 The statement was also published in
the New York Times but it passed unheeded: even the distinction was significant for it still
Jewish intellectuals had been mobilizing support against an Arab boycott ever since the
Yom Kippur/Ramadan war. A number of voices within the Israeli political sector began a
campaign to push the Israeli and US governments – as well as the United Kingdom, France and
1975 of the Israeli “Economic Warfare Authority,” the “philosophy” was “not to act, but to
I think it would be true to say that before 1973 people in Israel looked at the boycott [of
Israel] as a nuisance. Something one could use to badmouth those applying it, but
nobody was involved in a real struggle against the boycott… But after 1973, we all
19
Anon., “Kissinger Warnes Majority in U.N. on U.S. Support,” New York Times, 15 July 1975,
1,4-5. M’Bow vehemently criticised the US (Paul Hoffmann, “UNESCO Prodding U.S. on
16.
21
Amadou M. M'Bow, “A Statement on Israel,” UNESCO Courier, January, 1975 .
12
realized that the boycott is not only a problem but a danger as well.22
A central issue was the mobilization of the public in the US and Europe. As Susan Rolef
eloquently put it: “The logic behind this approach was that the more noise one made around the
issue, both in Israel and abroad [the better]…With regard to North America and Europe this was
part of a broader approach which sought to convince the public opinion that the Arabs were up to
no good, and that the West could and should stand up to them.”23 Although the initiative
involved the three major American Jewish organizations, it was led by “panic-stricken persons”
from outside the Israeli government, and “in cooperation with well-wishers from abroad to make
greater effort than ever before to face up to the Arab-boycott on the legal, practical and moral
levels.”24 In addition, since 1974, Jewish associations in the United States, especially the
Revolution.” Several demonstrations were organized in protest against the UN’s invitation to the
PLO to address the General Assembly. Articles and reports about the Arab boycott and the “new
Arab strategy” in the UN appeared every month on the pages of the Congress Monthly.25 But the
22
Danny Halperin, “Combatting the Arab Boycott -- An Historical Survey,” in Freedom of
Trade and the Arab Boycott, edited by Susan H. Rolef (Jerusalem, 1985).
23
Susan H. Rolef, Israel's anti-boycott policy (Jerusalem, 1989), 36 (my italics).
24
Rolef, Israel's anti-boycott policy, (cit. n. 21), 45.
25
The journal of the American-Jewish Congress. Joseph B. Shatta, “The New Arab Strategy”
Congress Monthly 41, no. 11 (Nov. 1974): 8. See also, Richard Cohen, “The American Jewish
Congress vs. the Arab Boicot”, Congress Monthly 43, no. 1 (Dec. 1975): 9-11; Anon., “Fighting
13
conservatives were not the only ones who condemned the UN and UNESCO; also liberal writers
– “the New York intellectuals”26 – deplored the General Assembly’s decision. Collaborating
with UNESCO was presented by intellectuals and scientists in Israel as endorsing its policy
towards Israel: “Israelis are disappointed at the lack of reaction from the scientific community
The UNESCO resolutions were also widely repudiated by intellectuals across the political
spectrum on both sides of the ocean. The day after the resolution was voted, the New York Times
published a one-page advertisement with the heading “WE PROTEST”, condemning UNESCO
“in view of the increasing open and blatant anti-Israel bias shown by the recent decisions.”28
More than 100 intellectuals signed it, including scientists like Hans Bethe, Owen Chamberlain,
Robert Hofstadter, Isidor Rabi, Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner.29 It was followed by another
statement with a similar text signed in Paris by European intellectuals of all political affiliations,
from Raymond Aron to Jean Paul Sartre. In early 1975, an ad hoc committee, convened by
the Arab Boicot”, Congress Monthly 42, no. 10 (Oct. 1975): 2; Anon., “UNESCO Assailed”,
627.
28
“We Protest,” New York Times, 21 November 1974. The advertisement, with more signatures,
November 1974.
14
Nobel Laureate André Wolf, and including intellectuals like Kenneth Arrow, Julian Huxley, and
writers Ernesto Sabato and Ignazio Silone, was set up to “look for the means and ways to bring
Somewhat ironically it was the ICTP itself that, at just this time, drew attention to its
financial links with UNESCO. Salam had always used the scientific journals and magazines to
call for further support for his institute. Just a few months before the 1974 General Conference, a
long article about the ICTP appeared in the pages of Nature. “Financial support is shared in
about equal proportions by the IAEA, UNESCO and the Italian government,” the author wrote.31
On November 8th, just twelve days before the UNESCO scandal, another article in the same
journal detailed the finances of the ICTP: “UNESCO support, although modest at first, is, at least
formally, ten years old and UNESCO pursues a policy of regarding its financial aid as no more
than seed money to get an institution ongoing.” It also pointed out the fragile situation in which
the Centre found itself due to its financial instability and the hard line adopted by some
delegations at UNESCO.32 Therefore, when the Israel Resolutions were approved, the scientists
knew that ICTP, an institute well-known for its concern for the Third World, depended on
UNESCO. In Israel, this knowledge produced among the scientific community the decision to
30
“Rencontre pour l'Universalité de l'UNESCO,” undated, mimeo. ASP, Bath UNIT. G. 116,
ASP.
31
Anon, “Centre for practice of theory,” Nature 248 (March 22, 1974): 270-271.
32
Anon, “Support for Trieste,” Nature 252 (Novembre 8, 1974): 87.
33
Luciano Bertocchi to Abdus Salam (internal memo), 26 July, 1975, G. 118, Abdus Salam
Papers. Catalogued by the National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary
15
In June 1975, science writer John Maddox reported: “I heard that a conference due to be held at
the ICTP during July has to be moved to Venice, simply because there are limits to the freedom
of international scientific centres, such as that at Trieste, which are supported by UNESCO, to
sponsor conferences at which Israelis may or may not attend.”34 In 1975, Salam arranged 60th
birthday celebrations for Fred Hoyle. Soon after the announcement of the event, Israeli scientists
made it clear that they would not visit the ICTP because of its links with UNESCO, which had
“excluded” Israel. The Israeli scientists were led by Salam’s former pupil, Yuval Ne’eman, then
President of Tel-Aviv University. In early 1975 Ne’eman was elected “Corresponding Member”
of the ICTP, presumably as a manoeuvre to demonstrate that the Centre wanted to stay away
from the political feud at UNESCO. Ne’eman replied stating that he would not be willing to visit
or accept any honor from the Centre.35 After a few months, the Centre was flooded with letters
from Israeli physicists who followed the line taken by Ne’eman. Thus, Hoyle’s birthday
conference was moved to Venice. This was just the beginning of a difficult year for the ICTP.
During 1975, the ICTP scheduled sessions in complex analysis, solid-state physics,
nuclear physics, plasma physics and high-energy physics. By mid-December 1974 a number of
American and Israeli physicists and mathematicians had resigned as organizers of the ICTP
Scientists; catalogue no. 99/4/1. Library of the “Abdus Salam” International Centre for
courses, and refused to attend any activity there. The boycott badly affected virtually all the
openly hostile position. He sent a strong letter of resignation with copies to a large number of his
colleagues.36 He convinced his good friend and eminent mathematician Lars Varedian Ahlfors,
to follow in his footsteps: as he explained to Salam: “the fact that some of my closest friends are
staying away makes my participation quite unattractive.”37 Wolfgang Fuchs, professor at Cornell
and the organizer of the course, did likewise: “the only way of protesting that [went] beyond
empty words [was] resigning.”38 More letters followed, and the trickle of resignations became a
The Solid State Winter Course showed a similar pattern. In late April 1975, Walter Kohn
and Norton Lang, from the University of California at San Diego, both central figures to the
course, added their names to the list of boycotters. An attempt was made to reorganize the
course by replacing the Americans with lecturers from Spain and Latin America, and requesting
that remaining speakers assume additional sessions. The situation became critical in December
1975 when, a matter of weeks before the course was due to start, Leo Falicov, an Argentinean
solid state physicist who worked in the United States, resigned. Falicov was the leading speaker,
in charge of fifteen lectures. John Ziman, the organizer of the course, had to ask two Spanish and
36
Lipman Bers to AS, 20 January 1975, G.118, ASP.
37
Lars Ahlfors to Salam, 27 January 1975, G.118, ASP.
38
Wolfgang Fuchs to Salam, 12 December 1974, G.116, ASP.
17
The case of the nuclear physics course mirrored those of the mathematics and solid state
courses. Very few scientists apart from the Americans the and Israelis joined the boycott.
However, the absence of researchers from leading institutions in North America or from the
Weizmann Institute, badly disrupted the courses. The ICTP was precisely a space where Third
World scientists could meet colleagues from leading centers in the West. Young European
scientists were attracted to the ICTP meetings due mainly to the presence of leading physicists,
most of them working in American universities. Their resignation was a terrible blow to their
expectations.
The boycott against the ICTP took place while a big revolution in high-energy physics
was under way. High-energy physics was the main field of research and activities at the ICTP
because of Salam’s group. The 1974-76 events have been analyzed by various authors, including
insiders, largely concerned with the intellectual development of particle physics and the relations
between theory, experiments and machines. 39 On 11th November 1974, two American
resonance around 3.1 GeV. Burton Richter’s group at the Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC),
called the new particle Psi (ψ), and the Brookhaven National Laboratory-MIT collaboration, led
by Samuel Ting, called it J. A few days later, the Italian laboratory at Frascati confirmed the
discovery of the “J/ψ” particle. The outcome was the establishment of charmed quark and
quantum chromodynamics, the late twentieth-century model of particle interactions. It was the
39
On the “November Revolution” see Andrew Pickering, Constucting Quarks: A Sociological
History of Particle Physics (Chicago, 1984), 180-188, 213-228 and 253- 281; Lillian Hoddeson,
Laurie Brown, Michael Riordan, and Max Dresden, eds. The Rise of the Standard Model.
Particle Physics in the 1960s and 1970s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
18
community of particle physicists who coined the term the “November Revolution” in high-
A few weeks after the J/ψ discovery Salam and Jogesh Pati, his Indian collaborator,
offered a particle spectroscopy alternative to the one predicted by the charm model. They
claimed that it was necessary to begin a search in the energy regions in which their model
predicted the existence of new particles. Salam hoped the colour-gluons would be detected as
well as charm. Salam proposed holding a meeting in Trieste during the summer of 1975. Its title
was “Phenomenology in High Energy Physics and the Missing Particles,” referring to the
possible companions of the J/ψs. Leading theoreticians and experimentalists were invited,
including Richter, but the Americans and the Israelis refused to participate. Some influential
theorists in Israel like Ne’eman and David Horn had already rejected any collaboration with the
ICTP, as did Haim Harari. Refusing any collaboration with the Centre, he told Salam that “the
only possible reaction of the civilized world must be to reject any participation of UNESCO in
any …event.” He also advised Salam that he intended to circulate the letter in which he had
discouraged the participation of scientists in ICTP activities.40 Salam tried to persuade him and
the others to stop the boycott pointing out that it would damage the Centre and not UNESCO.
The new particles were discussed in August at a major SLAC conference. Both Salam
and Pati felt excluded from the debates being held in the United States, not because their model
was rejected, but because it was being utterly ignored and the chance to explain it in Trieste
denied. Harari gave a talk in which he referred to “[t]he many versions of the Han-Nambu
color,” stressing that “[a]ll such models suffer from common difficulties.” Thus the only tacit
40
Haim Harari to Abdus Salam, 4 February 1975, B.246, ASP; my italics.
19
reference to the Pati-Salam model was in a reference to ten models that had to be discarded.
After a short comment he concluded that: “The rejection of the possibility that the -particles
are colored, returns us to the conventional theoretical framework of hadron physics.” Indeed,
Salam knew that alternative theories needed advocates, and that direct access to experimentalists
was crucial. He learned about SLAC’s official stance, through an internal memo signed at the
laboratory by 15 physicists, stating that “no experimental results obtained at SLAC could be
exhibited at a UNESCO institute like Trieste.”41 This was the coup de grace to the Trieste
meeting and actually the only ICTP activity that was cancelled as a result of the boycott.
In short, the boycott seriously disrupted all the activities held at the Centre between 1975
and 1976.
Although there was no explicit coordination of the boycott of the ICTP, there was a clear
national pattern: it was spearheaded by Israeli physicists who asked their American colleagues to
join them.42 Further, in each sub-discipline there was at least one promoter of the boycott: Kohn
(solid-state physics) circulated letters urging his colleagues, including Falicov, not to visit the
41
Abdus Salam to J. Harrison, 28 July 1975, G.118, ASP.
42
The idea of a conspiracy did arise in the minds of those in charge of ICTP’s activities. The
most explicit reference to someone pulling strings in order to damage the Centre came from Stig
Lundqvist. He thought that Walter Kohn was behind the boycott (Lundqvist to Budinich, 27 May
1975, G.121, ASP.). After all, Norton Lang, who joined him in the boycott, had been his pupil. It
ICTP; Bers (Complex Analysis), Harari (High-energy physics), and T.E.O. Ericson (Nuclear
physics) –the latter from CERN and one of the few physicists in Europe that boycotted the
Centre– sent similar letters urging their colleagues to follow their example.43 There were no
contacts between boycotting scientists from different sub-disciplines; in this sense the
The motivations of those promoting the boycott were very different. Lipman Bers was
born in Latvia, where he was politically active. In 1940, due to his Jewish background, he
immigrated to the United States, where he was supported by a Yiddish research organization. For
his contributions in complex analysis he was one of the leading mathematicians of his day.
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science since 1965, in 1972 he was
appointed Davies Professor of Mathematics at Columbia University. Bers led the creation of the
Human Rights Committee of the National Academy of Sciences. He was left-wing liberal and
commitment to humanitarian causes. 44 His friendship with Ahlfors dated from 1951.
Wolfgang Fuchs was another émigré from the Nazi government. After studying in
Cambridge, he went to the United States, where he pursued a brilliant career at Cornell
43
T.E.O. Ericson to Salam, 18 December 1974; and Bers to Salam, 20 January 1975, G.118,
ASP. Harari does not recall what his personal involvement in the affair was, but he remembers
sending copies of his “very strong letter to Salam” to other speakers (Haim Harari, email to
author).
44
William Abikoff, “Lipman Bers,” Notices of the AMS 42, no. 1 (January 1995): 8-18; Carol
Corillon and Irwin Kra, “On the Social Activism of Lipman Bers,” Ibid.: 18-21.
21
University. He was well known for his political activism. In Ithaca, he was member of the local
Chapter of Amnesty International. More significant, during the Cold War he promoted contacts
between American, Russian and Chinese mathematicians.45 Neither Bers, nor Fuchs was a
Zionist. Fuchs, in fact, had signed letters against the violation of human rights by Israel.
Therefore, their goal was not necessarily to support Israel’s policy through the boycott, but
certainly to oppose to the decision made at UNESCO. Excluding a country from the United
Nations violated the most elementary principles defended by human rights activists.
Walter Kohn’s case was different. Born in Austria to an orthodox Jewish family, he
studied in a Jewish school in Austria in the 1930s. When the Nazis occupied the country, he
emigrated to England, and his parents died in Auschwitz. After the war, he studied first in
Canada and later in Harvard . His identity was always a matter of permanent reflection for Kohn:
“In terms of my identity, I see myself as an American, a world citizen, a Jew and a former
Austrian.” Yet, his strongest ties were with the Jewish culture and community. In San Diego he
worked in several Jewish projects. In Israel, where he “had some of [his] closest friends,” Kohn
had a reference point.46 His friends advised him of the position of Israeli scientists towards the
45
J. Milne Anderson, David Drasin and Linda R. Sons, “Wolfgang Heinrich Johannes Fuchs
Despite the differences, we should notice a common factor. Bers, Fuchs and Kohn were
émigrés. They had learned first hand about the politicization of German academic world.
Furthermore, they strove not only against the “de-politicization” of academia. As scientific
émigrés they struggled for the secularization of academic life in order to confront the anti-
Semitism that prevailed in American universities in the 1930s and 40s. The importance of
keeping scientific institutions “politically neutral” had been crucial for their survival. Those who
presented the Israel Resolutions as the “politicization of UNESCO” thus brought back bitter
memories to the minds of several Jewish scholars. The way the Resolutions were presented to
In high-energy physics Haim Harari overtly promoted the boycott. Privately Ne’eman
also campaigned against the ICTP, but he preferred keeping a low profile; Harari took the
mission of mobilizing high-energy physics in the United States. Harari had finished his PhD in
Israel in 1965, and visited the ICTP that same year. He became an Associate Member in 1967,
although he only visited the Centre to attend a few conferences,not to do research.47 In 1974-75,
he was a visiting theoretician at SLAC and it was from there that he energetically campaigned
against UNESCO and the ICTP. Wolfgang Panofsky, one of the most prominent Jewish
physicists in the West Coast, was director of the Laboratory. Its Deputy Director, Sidney D.
Drell joined other scientists who signed a “Statement on UNESCO” stating that they would “not
participate in, cooperate with, support, or contribute to any UNESCO programs or Activities”
unless the decision to exclude Israel was reversed.48 As we saw, several physicists from that
47
ICTP, ICTP Annual Reports, 1967, 1968, ICTP Archives.
48
A Statement on UNESCO, Papers of Professor Sidney Drell, SLAC Archives.
23
laboratory refused to present their results at the Trieste center. SLAC did not oppose that
American scientific academies were also enrolled in the issue. In early 1975 a joint
Committee of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of
Sciences was appointed to recommend what action should be taken regarding the political
“misuse of UNESCO.” Harvey Brooks, president of the American Academy, reported to Salam
about the angry feelings among his American colleagues “due to the politicization of
UNESCO.”49 He asserted that although he would try to help the Centre, “this new turn place[d]
grave obstacles.” The Centre should be prepared for a massive boycott.50 Most of the boycotting
scientists of the ICTP belonged to at least one of these academies. The “exclusion” of Israel
meant, in their view, an occupation of the free cultural field by the Third World and the
49
Harvey Brooks, Letter read at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy on 14 May 1975,
G.116, ASP.
50
Harvey Brooks to Salam, 2 December 1974, G.116, ASP. Se also Harvey Brooks, Letter read
at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy on 14 May 1975, G.116, ASP. The joined
committee considered the possibility of having a meeting between scholars and scientists from
both industrialized and developing countries, “under the impartial aegis of the Swedish
Academy, but the idea of a conference was finally dropped in favor of a more thorough long
range approach through the carefully planned commission, discussion, and publication of scholar
papers” (S.R. Davis, “Report of the Special Committee on UNESCO.” In Records of the
their own battlefield. Scientists aligned themselves with other members of the Jewish Diaspora:
they were also part of the machinery that was “activated” against the “Arab boycott.”
Most members of national communities outside the United States and Israel refused to join the
boycott. The Europeans were critical about the Resolutions, but moderate with regards to the
idea of taking action against UNESCO programs. For several years, the solid-state physics and
the mathematics courses had been coordinated by Europeans. John Ziman, a British Fellow of
the Royal Society and the Swede Stig Lunqvist had been collaborating with the Centre since the
end of the 1960s. Both had experience in programs sponsored by UNESCO; for instance,
UNESCO had sent Ziman to Cuba as a scientific expert. They considered that the Israel
resolutions represented a big mistake on behalf of the Third World representatives and posed
grave obstacles for the development of the ICTP. Throughout the two years of the boycott,
Ziman and Lunqvist strove to explain to their colleagues that the UNESCO resolution has no
“practical effects” whatsoever for the organizations under her tutelage and that there was no
“strong administrative links between” ICTP and UNESCO.51 Furthermore, both scientists were
convinced that Walter Kohn was behind the boycott of their course. Hence, Ziman’s reaction to
the resignation of Norton Lang, who had been Kohn’s pupil, was severe:
If you are seriously concerned about the general policies of all the various organisations,
corporations, institutions, governments etc. that happen to give support to your scientific
51
J. Ziman to Henry Ehrenreich, 15 January 1976, G.118.
25
work, you should investigate these thoroughly and decide where your moral allegiances
really lie.52
Falicov’s reasons for boycotting the Centre added another ingredient to the Anti-Israel
affair, namely the exclusion of a nation like Taiwan from the ICTP activities. Falicov, however,
considered this a violation of the “principle of universality” that should prevail in science.53
Ziman perceived the danger of this argument and warned Salam: “I wrote back immediately
reassuring him as far as I possibly could and putting him right over Israel but the linking with
Taiwan is a very serious danger, since we have, indeed, excluded people from there.”54 In line
with the replacement of Taiwan by China in all UN agencies in 1971, the ICTP had to follow UN
rules. Budinich too replied to Falicov, explaining the legal reasons why the Centre could not
invite non UN-members.55 Ziman knew that this argument could open a new front in an already
difficult battle, igniting inconvenient debates about the real nature of scientific internationalism.
The ICTP was unwilling to open a discussion regarding which countries could and could not
Other scientists in Europe preferred to maintain UNESCO programs, like those sponsored
at ICTP, independent of the political feud ignited by the General Conference. While Harari and
the SLAC group boycotted the ICTP, Leon Van Hove, former director of the CERN Theory
52
J. Ziman to Norton Lang, 20 May 1975, G.118, ASP.
53
This “principle of universality,” as a token of the idealized scientific internationalism, was
Division, disapproved of the episode at UNESCO, “as a personal position,” but he “did not feel
that [his] contacts and doings with the Centre should be affected.”56 Similar reactions came from
mathematicians in England; J. Eells, coordinator or the Mathematics courses at the ICTP and a
professor in London, informed Salam that the general position within the American Mathematics
Society was to boycott any UNESCO affiliated organization, which he deplored.57 M.J. Field, a
colleague of Eells’, disagreed with the outcome of the 1974 General Conference, but was very
upset with Fuchs’ resignation.58 The sharp contrast between Americans and Europeans was
mirrored in music: the public discussion between virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin, on one hand, and his
colleagues in America Isaac Stern, Arthur Rubinstein and Leonard Bernstein on the other, is a
case in point; Menuhin, then president of the Music Council of UNESCO, refused to resign, as
An initiative taken by Victor Weisskopf (in the United States), Aage Bohr (in
Copenhagen), Alfred Kastler (in France) and John Ziman demonstrate their concern about the
émigré who had built close ties with post-war European physicists as Director of CERN in the
early 1960s, decided to write a letter to Physics Today on the grave consequences of such a
56
Leon Van Hove to Salam, 3 February 1975, G.120, ASP.
57
J. Eells to Salam, 18 January 1974, G.120, ASP.
58
M.J. Field to Salam, 2 January 1975, G.120, ASP.
59
The exchange of open letters in the pages of the New York Times spanned three months in
early 1975; see, for instance the following dates: 19 January, 18; 11 February, 2; 14 February, 5;
23 February, 12.
27
“division of the scientific community.”60 After long discussions about its terms, he, Kastler, Bohr
and Ziman published the letter in June 1976. It was the only public statement in favor of the
ICTP addressed to the scientific community. But the message went beyond the support to the
Centre; the authors were concerned not only with the division between First and Third World
scientists, but also between the scientific community in Europe and the US.
For intellectuals in Europe, UNESCO had been important in offering a new space for
international cooperation within Europe. In particular, UNESCO had been involved in the
negotiations to create CERN and therefore in the reconstruction of European science. For
scientists like Van Hove and Kastler the fact that UNESCO was “politicized” was not new. The
point was whether politics really obstructed international scientific exchange. American
scientists were more skeptical about multinational endeavors in general, and UNESCO in
particular. A study of sales of UNESCO publications for 1968 indicated that the most sizable
readership was in Europe, while attentiveness was greater in Latin America than in North
America.61 Europeans felt that the American and Israeli scientists were politicizing the issue,
while the Americans and Israelis argued that it was Arabs who had politicized UNESCO. All
were violently against the “November Diplomatic Revolution,” but their different experience and
interests with regards to UNESCO led to sharply different attitudes towards the ICTP.
60
Kastler, in France, went even further to suggest a letter urging not only not to boycott
organizations affiliated to UNESCO, but “not to boycott UNESCO itself” (Kastler to Victor
The common argument calling for boycott of the Centre was UNESCO’s sponsorship. To enter
into the anatomy of the boycott we need to investigate which other scientific initiatives, in areas
UNESCO sponsored, since the early 1950s, international activities related to the
exchange of scientific information and to the establishment of regional centers for the promotion
of scientific research. Since 1946, the International Council of Scientific Union (ICSU) had been
dependence on that institution had decreased since then, for the 1975-76 fiscal year UNESCO
contributed US$ 560.000 to ICSU for advisory services and specific activities, which was twice
The International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) was the foremost
international association of physicists. ICSU channeled funds for physics events through IUPAP.
UNESCO’s official documents explicitly stated this collaboration, extending its commitment to
support ICSU’s partners: “Further financial support will be provided, as appropriate, to the
unions, associations and other organs of ICSU for the execution of specific activities.”63
IUPAP’s Reports also established the links between the Union and UNESCO, and, although it
62
UNESCO, “Approved Programme and Budget 1975-1976” (Paris, 1975), 186, par. 2113.
63
UNESCO, Approved Programme and Budget 1975-1976” (cit. n. 60).
64
IUPAP, “Report on the 14th General Assembly.” (Washington D.C., 1973), 5.
29
A significant, though not surprising feature of IUPAP was its Western constituency and
image. In 1972, 10 out of the 39 National Committees of IUPAP were in Third World countries,
and of the total number of votes, allocated according the number of shares belonging to each
country, the Third World had only 15 out of 102. By July 1975, Salam decided that it was worth
trying to expose the potential danger faced by ICSU and IUPAP if the boycott widened. He
wrote to his friend Richard Dalitz: “If the boycott of all UNESCO-sponsored institutions
continues, ICSU is going to have a very difficult time soon.”65 Assuming political, and moral
consistency on behalf of the boycotting scientists, the equation was simple: if ICSU was worth
protecting, the scientific community should lift the boycott against the ICTP. The assumption
proved to be wrong.
The only IUPAP Book of Nomination Forms Salam kept in his personal library in Trieste
was the 1975 issue, the contents of which are revealing.66 At least three nominations from
Israel’s IUPAP National Committee were presented for consideration by the Fifteenth General
Assembly, due to be held in Munich in 1975: A. Muny, for a post at the Commission on
Superconductors; W. Low for a post at the Commission on Magnetism; and Haim Harari, who
was nominated for membership at the Commission on Particles and Fields. The form was
presumably submitted in May 1975, thus after Harari started his campaign against the ICTP.
65
Salam to Dick Dalitz, 1 July 1975, G.119, ASP.
66
In Abdus Salam Personal Library, held in the “Abdus Salam” ICTP Library (AS 341.16
IUPAP).
30
Another member of IUPAP throughout these years was Yuval Ne’eman.67 It is remarkable that
Salam did not expose this apparent contradiction of some the boycotting scientists. He
recognised that, in order to retain a foot in both fields, Third World development and First World
This was not the only incongruity between the adduced reasons for boycotting the ICTP
and the attitude towards other UNESCO-sponsored scientific initiatives. The August 1975 SLAC
(high-energy physics) conference was partly sponsored by IUPAP. Salam built his hopes on the
Canadian J.M. Harrison; “If SLAC knows of IUPAP’s relation with UNESCO, they must have
withdrawn hostility to UNESCO. This is good news for our programmes next year.”68
A few months later, Salam learned that the boycott was provoked not just by the
connection with UNESCO, but also by something deeper. Immediately after the SLAC
conference, Salam received a letter from an attendee, Tai Tsun Wu, a Harvard researcher. He had
visited the Centre only a couple of times and his contacts with Salam were sporadic,69 but
“strange conversations” among some participants on “what to do about the Trieste Conference,”
elicited the letter. The official position was to boycott the Conference because it was sponsored
67
In 1971 Ne’eman organised an International Conference in Tel-Aviv partially supported by
the union through a grant of US$1000 (IUPAP, “Report on the 14th General Assembly” (cit. n.
32)).
68
Salam to J. Harrison, 28 July 1975, G.120, ASP.
69
Tai Tsum Wu to the author, email to author.
31
Somebody then mentioned that the SLAC conference was also partially supported by
UNESCO, and that Harari was well aware of this. I could not judge the accuracy of this
statement, but it was in any case not challenged. After some further discussions, a pro-
Israel physicist finally admitted that the real reason for the boycott was not against
UNESCO, but because of your close tie to the developing countries, who were
Salam replied to Wu: “It had always puzzled me why Harari had taken such an initiative against
institution such as UNESCO had been linked in the United States to the “tyranny of the
majority.” Accordingly, the developing countries “and its allies” put in jeopardy the normal
course of international cooperation. Wu’s letter allows us to learn how the boycotting scientists
translated such a link and defined “normality” in the scientific field. I should like to extend
Jessica Wang’s thesis to argue that their aim was to call for an “anti-Third World” science as a
discursive strategy to define a “politically correct” science.72 For the promoters of the boycott a
“politically correct” science was, thus, keeping scientific institutions neutral regarding any
political conflict, meanung science should not be used to upset existing power relations in
70
T.T. Wu to Salam, 22 September 1975, G.119, ASP (my italics).
71
Salam to T.T. Wu, 20-Oct-75, G.119, ASP.
72
Jessica Wang, American Science in an Age of Anxiety: Scientists, Anticommunism, and the
international politics. The exclusion from international scientific exchange of those who
What was Salam’s link to Third World regimes interested in “politicizing” UNESCO and
other international organizations? Salam was indeed the leader of the Third World cause in the
Western physics community, and the ICTP embodied such a crusade to modernise the
developing countries through science. But it is worth considering another facet of Salam’s life
and his links to the Third World. Salam’s ties to Pakistan were at the highest level; for over 14
years, he had been scientific adviser to three different presidents. In early 1972, Pakistan left the
Commonwealth and by November it had left the SEATO security pact. It was hoped that cutting
economic and military ties with Britain and the United States, would pave the way to a leading
position among Arab nations. After being appointed as Prime Minister in 1973, Zulfiqar Ali
Buttho made a radical turn towards the Middle East and North Africa, hoping to impede an
eventual recognition of Bangladesh and to finance a Pakistani nuclear bomb.73 In February 1974,
the Islamic Summit gathered at Lahore. Radical leaders of the Arab world convened: Arafat,
King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, Colonel Qaddafi, and Presidents Assad, Sadat and Boumedienne.74
Salam in fact disliked Buttho’s anti-Western views, rhetoric and actions, but his position
was unclear to those outside his immediate circle – after all, he continued being Chief Scientific
73
A. Kapur, Pakistan's Nuclear Development (London, 1987), 74, 150; Ian Talbot, Pakistan. A
Pakistan as the “citadel of Islam in Asia” and stating that “our resources are your resources”
Adviser to the President of Pakistan. Ironically, he was linked by his fellows in the West with a
movement in his native country which he disagreed. In mid-1974, Salam resigned his position as
Presidential Adviser, and a few months later he resigned his membership of the National Science
Council – a body of which he had been part since 1963. His discrepancies with Buttho’s foreign
policy were not the cause, but rather his concern about the domestic policy of the new president.
Salam belonged to an Islamic heterodox sect called the Ahmadiyya Jammat. In 1974, an eight-
party coalition of the ‘ulama launched a campaign against the Ahmadiyaas, and as a
consequence the sect was officially legally expelled from Islam.75 Two of Salam’s lives clashed,
leaving him an easy target for attacks from both extremes, the populist Muslims in Pakistan, and
the “pro-Israel” physicists in the scientific community. The ICTP was scapegoated for Salam’s
conflicting and ambiguous links with both a Third World country striving to strengthen its ties
with the Islamic world, and with a Third World centre seeking Western support. Ambiguous also
because, ignoring the callings of various colleagues from both sides of the dispute, Salam never
75
As Talbot explains, Buttho “found that while closer ties with the Islamic world were all well
and good for strengthening Pakistan’s diplomatic position, money from the oil-rich Middle East
also flowed freely into the coffers of his would-be opponents” (Talbot, Pakistan (cit. n. 70),
238). The 1973 constitution declared that Islam was the state religion. Hence, the 1974 expulsion
not only had religious consequences that led to further persecution, but political and legal ones
too. Indeed, since 1974, the harassment and human rights violations against the Ahmadiyya
community escalated with the tacit complicity of the state, as organisations like Amnesty
International and others have made public (A.R. Gualtieri, Conscience and Coercion. Ahmadi
Yet, Salam’s association to Islam was not enough to warrant the boycott; during its first
fifteen years, the ICTP did not achieve the status of a mainstream research school. It was
perceived as a center to foster Third World development rather than a mainstream research
institution. As a result , boycotting the ICTP had very different professional consequences from
boycotting a élite institution such as Stanford. While the former would not harm the professional
situation of a boycotter, the latter would have resulted in scientific suicide. Harari described his
first contact with the Centre in a letter as follows: “It was an unbelievable opportunity for me, as
a young scientist, to meet just about every prominent theoretical particle physicist in the world
(including USSR) in one place before I even become a postdoc.”76 By the mid-1970s, Harari was
a player in the big leagues, a regular visitor to SLAC and a Professor at the Weizmann Institute.
For most Israelis, the prospect of strengthening their links with a prestigious laboratory in the
United States was certainly more attractive than an association with a Centre identified with
Third World development. We can, then, begin to understand why the ICTP, was an obvious
scapegoat; its low scientific reputation, its identification with Third World aspirations and
unstable financial situation made it a soft target for an attack against UNESCO.
To understand Salam and Budinich’s strategy to handle the boycott, it is necessary to recall the
financial situation of the Centre by the mid-1970s. Between 1972 and 1977, the combined
contributions from “unstable sources,” especially the Ford Foundation, the United Nations
Development Program (UNDP) and the Swedish International Development Agency was greater
76
Haim Harari email to the author, 11 June 1999.
35
than UNESCO’s or the IAEA’s. To make things worse, those contributions would end in 1977-
78, placing the continuation of such programs in jeopardy. Salam spelled out the situation in an
eloquent letter to Sigvard Eklund, IAEA’s Director, concluding that “under the actual conditions
[the ICTP was] not viable”.77 This was a dramatic touch to a long-time “plea for our parent
organisations to take charge of the funding and not to leave it to any persuasion the Centre can
hope to carry with great organisations like UNDP the task is getting beyond our humble
strength.”78
Hans Bethe then suggested a solution: “In the meantime, and until the UNESCO Board
rescinds its decision, could you not ask the government of Iran to support you for the intervening
years directly? In that case you could renounce UNESCO support for the time until the political
decision is reversed.”79 In fact, Salam had already taken the initiative to approach Iran motivated
by its government’s pro-Western leanings and public discourse about the importance of
promoting science and technology for development. In the Winter of 1974 he traveled to Teheran
seeking funds for the Centre. On returning home he was optimistic, but the offer did not
materialize. .
During 1975-76, Salam and Budinich negotiated with UNESCO and the IAEA on two
points: how to bring financial stability to the Centre, and how to survive the boycott. On the
financial side, they pointed to the ICTP’s chronic deficit, and its new programmes, the most
77
See Salam to S. Eklund, 19 January 1976, D.169, ASP; Salam to Eklund, 11 July 1975 and
vulnerable of which were precisely those of most value for UNESCO. They lobbied UNESCO
through their Italian contact, Dr. A. Forti, in order to get support for courses on “appliable”
subjects, such as Oceanography and Applied Mathematics. This trend of aligning the ICTP
scientific program with UNESCO science policies had started before this date. However, given
M’Bow’s instrumentalist view of science, it was crucial to emphasize the ICTP’s commitment
with something other than theoretical physics. On 21 April 1975, the Director-Generals of the
IAEA and UNESCO arranged a lunch meeting in Paris, to which Salam was invited, to discuss
the future of the ICTP. Salam requested that the physicists Leon Van Hove (CERN) and Alfred
Kastler (Strasbourg), both strong supporters of the ICTP, be invited. These men had been
members of the 1974 ad Hoc Committee, whose recommendations served as a reference point to
prepare the agenda of the meeting.80 The agenda did not explicitly refer to the boycott, but it was
the political background to the meeting. In that meeting the extension of the agreement was
arranged, admitting the necessity of increasing the “stable” contributions, and on 3rd July 1975
the formal extension, valid until 1978, was signed by UNESCO and the IAEA.
Did Salam invoke the boycott during the negotiations? He certainly played with an
elementary feature of a patronage relationship: that at its most elemental level it entails an
exchange of loyalty for material support. In January 1975, Salam wrote to M’Bow thanking him
for his note to Eklund that had recommended an extension of the IAEA-UNESCO agreement. He
also briefed the Director-General about the risk of a massive boycott from the US and Israel.
Salam sent copies of his letter to M’Bow and Harrison, emphasising that, in view of the boycott
and of the critical financial situation, he “would deeply appreciate guidance.” 81 The word
80
P. Budini, to C.R. O'Neil, C.R., 16 March 1975, D.169, ASP.
81
Salam to M'Bow, 13 January 1975, G.118, ASP.
37
“guidance” appears in both his letter to M’Bow and the annexed note to Harrison, but nowhere
else in his correspondence concerning the ICTP’s management did Salam make such a request.
He was a master at asking help for the Centre, but “guidance” also meant advice and such a plea
for instructions is unusual. Salam continued to consult UNESCO about the best steps to take and
to brief it about the boycott. He wanted to transmit a clear message: although he disliked the
Israel Resolutions for the damage that they could cause on the UNESCO programs, he would
remain loyal to the organization. Harrison insisted: “you [Salam] are in a unique situation to
make a statement […] to show the western scientists that their action in denying support to the
UNESCO secretariat will do precisely what western science does not want to happen: impede the
implantation of science and technology in the developing world.”82 Salam never make a public
statement, for or against the Resolutions and its consequences. The key, he believed, was
keeping a prudent distance from the political debate and, in private, displaying the art of
opportunism in the political context. The ICTP should not state an official position because that
may put in serious jeopardy its relations with UNESCO or with the Western scientific
This survey of their actions helps one appreciate Salam and Budinich’s strategy. Salam’s
punctual reports of the effects of the 1974 General Conference upon the Centre’s activities; the
desperate appeal for “guidance” just when the boycott was starting; and the combined efforts
with the Italians to make sure that UNESCO became aware of their efforts to widen the ICTP’s
programmes --- in tehse ways Salam and Budinich delivered a message of solidarity and loyalty
during a crisis generated by and within UNESCO. However, if the Centre had to suffer the
consequences of the confrontation between blocs in the General Conference, then UNESCO had
82
J.M. Harrison to Salam, 24 January 1975, G.118, ASP.
38
to show its commitment in supporting the ICTP’s demands for more funds. The Centre, with its
halo of neutrality, would try to clarify the situation among the scientific community. In this
sense, the Centre could be instrumental to the purposes of UNESCO. If the Centre disappeared,
In 1976, the ICTP achieved an unprecedented increase in the IAEA’s and UNESCO’s
appropriations. Shortly before the beginning of both General Conferences in Vienna and Paris,
Salam mobilised all his allies, in the Third World and in the industrialised countries, to “exercise
recommendations. For fiscal year 1977-78, they recommended raising IAEA’s contribution
from US$230.000 to US$ 450.000, and UNESCO’s from US$225.000 to US$300.000.83 The
recommendations were passed by both Conferences. After the UNESCO Conference, M’Bow
allocated an extra US$100.000 grant, a gesture that one could interpret as compensation for a
difficult year. Overall, it was the largest increase by both agencies during the 1964-1979 period
(Table 1). In current dollars, compared with the year before, the IAEA and UNESCO
83
Salam’s letter to a network of scientific-bureaucratic allies was dated on 11th March 1976.
Among them: V. Latorre (Perú); S. Mascarenhas (Brazil); J.J. Giambiagi (Argentina); A. Kastler
(France); V. Weisskopf (USA); B.D. Nag Chaudhury (India), M. Menon (India); A. Baiquni
(Mexico); F. Claro (Chile); D.A. Akyeampong (Ghana) (D.171, ASP). For a discussion on the
ICTP’s Associates network see De Greiff, “The Intenational Centre for Theoretical Physics (cit.
n. 1), Chapter 5.
39
allocations had increased by 85% and 38%, respectively.84 In constant dollars, the effective
combined contribution had increased by 20%. Finally, the negotiation with both agencies was
crucial to increasing the Italian component; as mentioned before, raising UNESCO and IAEA
appropriations would ease negotiations with the Italian government. As can be seen from Table
1965 1966 1967 1968 196 197 197 197 197 197 197 197 197 197 197 198 198 1982
9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
Italy -1.77 - - -8.2 -2.3 - - - - 2.9 1.8 - - 5.4 11. 2.6 26. 10.3
IAEA -0.35 14.4 8.74 - -0.5 - - - 0.2 2.7 15. -7 16. - - 7.3 - 6.23
UNESC -0.14 -0.2 - - -0.2 23. - -1 - 2.2 1.4 -1 4.8 - -1 - 1.5 -0.84
Other -2.26 11.7 6.88 -10 -3 20. - - - 7.9 18. - 20. - 9.9 8.5 26 15.7
Table 1: Increment of the contributions to the ICTP; comparison between two successive years
I should stress that in 1976 UNESCO itself was boycotted financially by the US, France
and Switzerland. Thus, it is remarkable is that, under such financial pressure, added to the world
84
The 1970 figure might be misleading without recalling that that in year UNESCO joined the
financial crisis and inflation, UNESCO’s Secretariat decided to allocate more funds to the
ICTP.85 Salam described the improved relationship in a letter to his ally on the other side of the
Atlantic, Victor Weisskopf. He described the only consolation in the critical situation created by
UNDP’s withdrawal and the boycott: “Fortunately, we have now at the UNESCO secretariat,
some real friends. Both the new Director-General, M’Bow and the Head of the Scientific
Division, Prof. A. Kaddoura –a nuclear physicist – are good and courageous friends who try to
help us in every possible way… They will propose in the next meeting of Executive Board (Apr-
May) for an increase of 28% of ICTP.” Salam thus suggested to Weisskopf that he say “a word
So far, I have not discussed Salam’s strategy for dealing with the boycotting scientists. In order
to analyse the director’s modus operandi among the American scientists, it is necessary to look
back to the summer of 1975. Salam suggested to Luciano Bertocchi, professor at the Institute of
Theoretical Physics of Trieste University, that he contact some Israeli physicists during his trip
to the United States to attend conferences. Salam thought that this would be a good occasion to
investigate the magnitude of the attack without exposing the Centre or himself directly.
Bertocchi could do what Salam could not: explain that the ICTP did not approve the UNESCO
resolutions either. Bertocchi provided Salam with a detailed report entitled “Report of his visit to
US” explaining that the Israelis wanted the ICTP to issue a public statement against UNESCO.
85
Salam to M’Bow, 3 December 1977, G.118, ASP.
86
Salam to V. Weisskopf, 3 March 1976, G.120, ASP.
41
That would be enough, at least for some Israelis to lift the boycott. However, Salam had no
doubts that signing any statement against UNESCO would put in jeopardy his negotiations to
secure the financial stability of the Centre. Bertocchi was in the position of signing such a letter.
A few months later, he sent a letter in which the boundary between his personal opinion and the
ICTP’s official position was deliberately unclear.87 That was not enough for the Israelis.
Although he did not recall the episode, in an interview with the author he eloquently speculated
…it was clear that for certain things Salam, even if he wanted, probably preferred not to
appear in first person. Because, after all, he was a United Nations officer… I was just a
university professor. I had a sort of contract with the Centre as an adviser, but I was not
directly responsible for it. Therefore, I could take a position that was a bit different.
And, of course, knowing Salam, and remembering the general situation, this letter, if it
was written, was written not against Salam’s will, but I would say, instead, on Salam’s
suggestion.88
Avoiding direct public confrontation on political matters would preserve the boundary between
science and politics. Salam was definitively not allowed to mix them. He must demonstrate that
his political actions were completely disconnected from his politics. Whilst the balance of power
allowed the boycotting scientists to “politicize science”, Salam was not. Furthermore, he was
fully aware that his political strength depended on preserving an image of a non-politicized
scientist. Indeed, Salam appealed to his allies to confront the political controversy.
87
See Adam Schwimmer , Avraham Rinat,and Julius Davis to Luciano Bertocchi, 29 January
The utility of Wu’s letter was that it provided Salam with an instrument to mobilise his
allies. Wu’s testimony showed that the boycott was motivated by ill-feelings towards some
members of the scientific community. Aware of its power, Salam forwarded the letter to several
scientists in the Third World as well as to some of his allies in the United States and Europe,
including Aage Bohr, Kastler and Weisskopf.89 The decision and terms of their letter to Physics
It would appear that the boycott is in itself an attempt to use a bona fide international
scientific activity as an instrument in the political conflict. It was thus at variance with
the very principle that provides the basis for the criticism of the developments in
UNESCO.90
In the meantime, the development of the High-energy physics November revolution was
unfolding quickly. Pati and Salam knew that their theory would not stand on its epistemological
merits alone, and to survive in had to be circulated within the appropriate social circles. As I
pointed out, the aim of the Conference at Trieste was having access to the experimenters. Salam,
however, never had this chance at the ICTP, although, in the summer 1976 the Centre held a
conference on the topic with the altered title “Lepton Interactions and New Particles.” Salam
approached Panofsky, the director of SLAC, asking him to suggest names of participants.
Panofsky replied dryly that arrangements should be made on a “personal basis,” and that he
could “not guarantee that some of the problems which beset your last conference may not arise
89
Kastler to Weisskopf, December 1975, G.120, ASP.
90
Hans Bethe, Aage Bohr, Ben Mottelson, Victor Weisskopf, and John Ziman, “No Boycott for
again.”91 The 1976 conference was a failure for one reason: by then, as Pickering points out, “the
critical phase of the November Revolution was over.”92 There was little space to convince the
experimentalists to start a search for alternatives to charm and confinement. Apparently, Salam
did not even go to the meeting; he had realized that the ICTP had been isolated from the high-
energy physics revolution. A new “established tradition” being created, and the ICTP could only
Coda
The boycott was the instrument some Israeli and pro-Israeli scientists deployed in order to
sensitize and unify the American scientific community against the Arab boycott and, more
generally, in order to favor any eventual Israeli counter-measure. Whatever the Resolutions said,
UNESCO represented an ideal opportunity to mobilize American scientific intellectuals, with the
ICTP serving as a scapegoat. Scientists who boycotted the ICTP had different motivations.
However, their individual actions produced a global effect: a serious disruption in the ICTP
What were the effects of the boycott? Boycotts are intended to produce political changes
in the target. The boycotting scientists thought that denying scientific collaboration with the
Third World through the ICTP would pressure the delegations to reverse their decision about
Israel. At the outbreak of the boycott, Leon Van Hove was confident that “under [Salam’s]
direction the Centre [would] avoid any form of political prejudice” and estimated that the crisis
91
Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky to Salam, 17 February 1976, G.121, ASP.
92
Pickering, Constructing Quarks (cit. n. 37), 268.
44
would last only a “few years.”93 Both judgments proved to be correct. The time factor is in fact
crucial in a boycott; this form of sanction require a sustained action during extended periods of
time due to the complexity of the networks involved in the academic field. By 1977, after the
UNESCO General Conference lifted the sanctions on Israel, independently from the boycott of
This episode shows the tensions and contradictions of international science.94 In spite of
being aware that a clear boundary between science and politics was essential for the public
image of the Centre, Salam carefully strengthened the link between the ICTP and UNESCO
during the negotiations, and kept out of the public debate. He quickly realized that while the
boycott was contingent, the shortage of funds was the real obstacle to the ICTP’s consolidation
as a research centre. It was essential to avoid any direct confrontation because, otherwise, he
American and Israeli scientists did, is a political maneuver to discredit the opponent showing that
he or she is violating the supposedly neutral character of the scientific ethos. The ideological
force of the scientists’ own rhetoric about scientific internationalism lies in its power to mobilize
allies, even though counter-measures such as participating in a boycott demonstrate the political
character of science. Such behavior provides, perhaps, an ideal crucible in which to explore the
93
L. Van Hove to Salam, 3 February 1975, B.286, ASP.
94
Ron Doel, “Scientists as Policy Makers, Advisors and Intelligence Agents: Linking
In relation to the politics of international scientific cooperation, Elzinga points out that
concerned with scientific knowledge, was the outcome of the Anglo-American “populism”
during the initial negotiations. It was opposed by the French, who wanted a more “intellectual”
UNESCO. One could add thus that, since its inception, the “politicisation” issue has been part of
UNESCO’s history.95 The Israel Resolution was a manifestation of the process of “de-
technicization” that M’Bow’s administration represented in the history of that institution. It was
not the politicization of the institution, but an effort to bring it back to the “original more activist
than the politicization it was the re-politicization of UNESCO. Thirty years after the
establishment of UNESCO, the positions about the “politicization” of that institution were
misrepresentation of its “original” function. Conversely, the Europeans and Third World nations
institutions is a free-floating boundary between knowledge and power that, during a controversy,
Colombia, ahdegreiffa@unal.edu.co.
95
Elzinga, “UNESCO and the politics of Scientific Internationalism,” 90-91.
46
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the staff of the National Catalogue Unit Archives of Contemporary Scientists,
Bath University; Jean Maries Deken from SLAC Archives and History Office, at Stanford
University; and the ICTP Archives for their crucial help. I am deeply grateful to John Krige and
David Edgerton for their careful reading and thoughtful criticisms and suggestions; this paper
owes much to their encouragement. My colleagues and students of the Seminario de Estudios
Bogotá, made insightful comments. Jimena Canales, Paul Forman, Stefania Gallini, Francisco
Ortega, Fernando Viviescas, Andy Warwick, as well as the participants of the Seminar of the
Centre for the History of Science, Tecnhnology and Medicine at Imperial College, London,
offered valuable critical suggestions. I thank also the participants of the Workshop this volume is
based on, especially Kai-Henrik Barth and Nikolai Krementsov, as well as two anonymous
referees. For their support at various stages of this work, I thank the Universidad Nacional de
Colombia, COLCIENCIAS and the Bogliasco Foudation. I thank Professors Luciano Bertocchi,
Haim Harari, Faheem Hussain and John Ziman for sharing with me their memories on the history